ANGLO-AMERICAN BANQUET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3292, 18 April 1917, Page 43

ANGLO-AMERICAN BANQUET.

LLOYD GEORGE'S SPEECH. (B.v Cable.) The American Ambassador (Mr Page), presiding at an American luncheon to Air Lloyd George at the Savoy, proposed the Prime Minister's health. Mr Page said : "We have set out to help the enterprise of having the earth as a place worth living in. We have come in answer to the high call of duty and not for any material reward or territory or indemnity or conquest or anything. We have "only the high duty to succour democracy when it is desperately assailed. jA foremost consequence of this would be a better understanding between the free peoples of Europe and America." Mr Lloyd George, in replying, said he was proud to be the first British Prime Minister to welcome the Americans as comrades in arms. He rejoiced at America's advent into the war, because it finally stamped the war as a struggle for human liberty against military autocracy, and because it would have been a tragedy, if America did not sit at the Peace Conferehcfi. "The Kaiser has promised that Prussia will a democracy after the war I think he is right."—(Cheers.) _ Mr Lloyd George continued : "The Prussian ideal at present amounts simply to constituting <in army and intimidating . the world. The Kaiser, intoxicated by Prussiauism, delivers law to the world as if Potsdam were a new Sinai and he were uttering the law from the thunderclouds." Two facts clinched the argument that this was a struggle for freedom—America's advent and the Russian revolution. If the Russians realised, as apparently .they were doing, that national discipline was com- \ patible with and essential to national freedom, they would become a free people. Hindenburg recently disclosed the real reason why Germany had provoked America, and he had shown that he was relying on one of two things,—either that the German submarines would so destroy shipping that Britain would 1 be put out of action before America was ready, or that, when America was ready, there would be no ships to transport a United States , army. Hindenburg had drawn a nothoroughfare line across the Allies' territories, and the Allies must make a similar line at Germany's legitimate frontiers. It behoves ,the Empire and America principally to make reckoning as false as his computation regarding his vaunted line on the west front, which, we have already broken. What is the Hindenburg line? It means a line across other people's territories, with a warningto the inhabitants that they shall only cross it at the peril of their lives. Europe, after enduring this for many generations', has now made up its mind that a Hindenburg line must be drawn across tha legitimate frontiers of Germany herself. - The audience here rose up, for several moment?, cheering loudly. Mr _ Lloyd George said that when the Americans were told that they would not be allowed to cross and rccross the Atlantic except at their peril they could not think it possible) that any sane people should behave _ in that manner. They tolerated it oncej they tolerated it twice, until at last it became clear that the Germans really meant it. Then America acted and acted promptly. Hindenburg's line was drawn along the shores of America, and the Americans were told that they must not cross it. America said, " What's: this."Germany said, " This is our line, beyond which. you must not go," and America said, "The place for that line is not on the Atlantic but on the Rhine, and we must help you to roll it up, and they have started on the road to victory with absolute assurance. Victory must be found in the one word, ships, and with % characteristic keenness the Americans have full}' realised that and have already arranged to build one thousand 3000 ton vessels for the Atlantic trade. Ths British are slow blundering people, but they get there. The Americans get there sooner. That is why we are glad' to se« them in. We have been three years iai this business, and having got through every blunder, we have got a good start now. We are right out on our course." Mr Lloyd George suggested that ' America should study Britain's blunders and start where Britain now is and not where she started. Mr Lloyd George proceeded: "Th« peace conference will settle the desthrf of nations and the course of human life for countless yeai's. I see peace coming now—a real peace. "We shall never know all the strange things' that have happened in this war. But stranger things are coming, and that rapidly. Six weeks ago' Russia was an autocracy; now it is one of the most advanced democracies m the world. To-day we are waging the most devastating war in history; to-morrow —perhaps not a distant to-morrow —war may be abolished from the category of human crimes. " One absolute assurance of victory will be found in the one word : ' Ships.'" The German military advisers must already be realising that this constitutes another tragic miscalculation which is going to lead them to disaster and ruin." He paid a tribute to the assistance America had already rendered to tho Allies. America would not only wage successful war, but would also ensure a beneficent peace. The Prime Minister concluded: "The British advance on Easter Monday began at dawn, and it was a work fit for Tha Dawn. Our gallant soldiers are the Heralds of Dawn, and the Allies will soon emerge into the full radianca of the Perfect Day." Mr Massey and Sir J. G. Ward attended the Anglo-American banquet.